BY RENAE DIXON Sunday Observer staff reporter dixonr@jamaicaobserver.com Sunday, January 04, 2015
AMELDA Schlifer and her family, which includes her three sons and a nephew, will soon have a new home.
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| The house which the family of five call home. (PHOTOS: RENAE DIXON) |
The family has Facebook users to thank after they responded to a post made on the social network that the family, which lives in a deplorable condition, needed help.
The family has called a one room dilapidated zinc structure in Orange Hill, Brown's Town, St Ann their home for many years, but was unable to do anything to change their situation because of poverty.
"Mi can't stop thank dem and it no finish yet," a happy Amelda Schlifer, 35, told the Jamaica Observer recently as four men worked busily on a new building that she expects to call home later this month, pending further assistance.
"Every day when they come dem say how mi a laugh so," she said, adding that she was happy for the assistance as she has been struggling for many years.
"When rain fall, in here wet up and mi have to put basin to ketch water," Schlifer said in reference to the challenges she faced in the room which was built by her father for her children and herself.
The mother of five added: "It rough, rough. Sometimes mi go out and people give mi little work."
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| These men volunteer their time to ensure that the family gets a new home |
According to her, she was praying and asking God for help but she never expected a house.
Schlifer, who often depends on the assistance of people to support her children, said that she received help from their fathers, but rarely.
Jamaica Labour Party councillor/caretaker for the Brown's Town division, Kim Brown Lawrence, who made the post on Facebook, said that there was nothing political about the assistance being given to the family.
She said that the concrete house being constructed was solely through donations from compassionate Facebook users.
Brown Lawrence, who is expected to represent the JLP in the local government elections due in March, said that she was doing house-to-house visits when she found out that the family needed help.
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| A happy Amelda Schlifer says she appreciates the help. |
"I was doing house-to-house when I met Amelda Schlifer, otherwise known as Spider," Brown Lawrence said.
"When I came here I saw her son coming from under the cellar so I said, 'what is he doing there' and he said that's where he sleeps during the night," Brown Lawrence commented, a clear indication that help was needed urgently.
She then went to view the house where the children slept on the floor while their mother slept on a sponge.
"It was full of water; she had a milk can on the wood fire inside her home with one egg boiling," Brown Lawrence recalled, describing the situation as a picture of suffering.more
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